"Pull early, pull often"

George

As someone who owned both an SR20/SR22 G3, that is ridiculous with your background.
To me, it's Cirrus way to keep their CSIP's making $, their Cirrus service centers making $'s and their rental fleets flying.

It's not harder to fly than any other high performance airplane and like any new checkout, study systems, get the site pic and off you go.

Have fun.

I’ve decided to take a pass on the Cirrus checkout. There’s an Arrow I can rent with a “normal” checkout. I’m also going to rent a Cessna 414 Sim locally. At least I can stay somewhat current. Not owning an airplane sux!

Sheesh. I remember back in the day, if you checked out in a 182, you were good for the 172 and 152 as well. If you checked out in the Arrow, you were good for the Archer and Warrior.

Times change, I guess.

Best,
Rich

Wow, you just brought back a great memory for me. It is from my childhood in the late 1960s. Dad drove me down to Santa Monica Flyers at SMO on a Saturday morning to go flying. He wanted to rent one of their Cherokee 140s just like we had done the week before.

This time, the guy who ran the counter checked his card file and found that dad had only been checked out in their 172, not their Cherokees. Now this posed a problem for him as he had let dad rent a Cherokee just last week and would be a real heel to not let him rent one this week. He decided to let dad have the keys with the understanding that he had to get a checkout before renting again, which dad never did.

The good old days…

Some of my previous checkouts and by whom:

T-34 2 or 3 flights, USAF flying club, first Hp/complex
T210 2 flights, Cessna Flying Club
P210 1 flight, Cessna Flight Test
414A 2 flights, Cessna Flight Test
T303 1 flight, Cessna Flight Test

We bought our A36 in 1990. I was instrument rated, my co-owner was not.

The insurance company wanted me to get a 5 hour checkout, they insisted my co-owner had to get a 25 hour checkout.

I had roughly a couple hundred hours high performance retractable time as well.

I did the Embark training (we did it in two long days) when I bought my G3 TN Avidyne Cirrus back in 2017 (since sold when I moved to the M600). I was a much lower time pilot then and very much appreciated the course; the OP being a very experienced pilot unquestionably didn't "need" the entire course.

But I think that the Embark program is unique in that it is paid for by the manufacturer and offered to anyone who buys a new or used Cirrus. There are lots of great training courses available for various airplanes but this is the only one I know of that the manufacturer pays for even when they didn't sell a new airplane. And the emphasis on training, as noted above, has significantly reduced the accident rate. As Mike C noted also, the chute (by itself) didn't reduce the rate.

Its definitely nice to have, but training, situational awareness and good ADM are the best predictors of a good outcome. The chute helps in the edge cases; of course, if you're in an edge case, you're glad you have it.

But I think the real driver of the Cirrus-paid Embark program was insurance and liability risk to Cirrus. I doubt that it was motivated by a desire to send business to CSIPs, although it surely did that. Cirrus got hit with some big judgments (like a lot of aircraft manufacturers) and I'm guessing they decided to bring down the accident rate and lower their exposure (and premiums), and decided that doing something like Embark was a lot cheaper than paying a few $100 mm+ product liability judgments and the increased premiums associated with them. And I think its probably accomplished that objective while increasing the skill level of the Cirrus pilot population. So I give them credit for doing so even if it was motivated by self-interest, as it benefits the self-interest of their customers too.

It's a club thing.
To keep insurance rate low, and to generate revenues


If you you want to rent from this guy in KCRQ... he has fairly new Cirrus that he rents for 800 an hour... and instructors are 125 an hour... with the same 10 hours requirements... So the checkout is 8k... Yup, you could get a nice type rating for that cost.

Easiest plane I've flown. Easier to land consistently than a 172. I think Cirrus just wants to preserve their image (in the eyes of insurance and public) more than anything. Insurance will obviously go along.

Time is probably good sorting out the avionics and getting into the mindset of pulling the chute. I fell for the "looking for a place to put down" trick when I was supposed to just say deploy the chute. And of course getting familiar with the avionics if you're not accustomed to glass. As for flying. Super duper easy. Flies like an airplane.

I'm thinking that insurance rates would be extremely low with nobody renting the plane.

As for revenue, we've all been taught about the point of diminishing returns. They wouldn't be getting any of my money.

$800 an hour for a Cirrus??? Is that typical?

This summer I was renting a DA42 twin for about $475 an hour wet. However, they did tell me I would need 25 hours in it for insurance purposes before I could fly it solo. They also had a full-cockpit DA42 sim for $75 an hour "club price". Didn't ask if sim time counts towards the 25 hours.

California prices.

I did rent one to do a IPC FR recently just to see what it was about. I think it was $650 per hour plus the instructor. It was a higher end one with turbo.

They are not cheap to maintain.

Those guys have a few, and range from 600 to 800...one of them is a 2020 brand spanking new. Very nice though, but wow... that is way too rich for my wallet. And 115 per hour for instructor.
The couple of clubs that we have around here will rent a G2 for 380 an hour, wet. Same 10 hour checkout.

Never flown one. What in particular makes it $600-$800 an hour "nice"?